MattyM

I also have some Platy fry in various stages. I think mama is already pregnant again, even though I moved the male out of the tank a couple weeks later - praise be 🙃

This vid helped me get in the ballpark. I had to buy the API gh/kh test kit, and I can't recommend a digital ph checker enough - a good one, here's what I got: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01ENFOHN8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Keep it calibrated, and wait for it to come up to temp (the only thing I don't like about it - the temp reading can be a bit slow):

I think themaworks is having a 30% off sale. I keep one next to my tanks and also use it for water changes. For eyeballing temps I just use the floating suction cup ones but barely use them anymore.

Did you check with your neighbors?

Sure thing @MannyThakk - I'll send you a message.

Just thought I'd post an update to this - the cloudiness turned into green water! This is Punky's tank so she was particularly interested: I hit it with a the Green Killing Machine for a couple weeks. When the water cleared, I had hair algae everywhere, and explosive growth on all plants - def where a ton of nutrients in the water. After a cleaning and time, everything seems back in balance now: Just wanted to thank everyone! Learned a lot on this one.

Crypts and whatever tetras catch my eye! Oh and gotta have a towel.

Hi @MannyThakk - that sounds great! I have a 20 long, 10 gallon, and am setting up a 20 high - basically building a little fish wall in my home office. Each tank has different substrate, plants, and filtration (tho each has a sponge filter) so I can figure out what I like before going any bigger. Just send me a message if/when you'd like the fry - they are super healthy. May be a challenge to catch in my heavily planted tank but we'll get em! If you'd like some stem plant clipping I can prob give you some too.

Mine sits on the shelf - even at lower dosings I always get some hair algae the next day. I think in Walstad's book she mentions how algae easily outcompetes plants for iron in the water column. Like you I stick with EG and root tabs, eyeballing when the plants need it.

I’m guessing light and excess nutrients. But if that’s duckweed on top, it will soon spread enough to handle both those issues.

Thanks @Tanked - I tried about everything yesterday, including assembling upside down with weights on top to try to keep the top flush. Once everything is tight, it just isn't flush. The instructions actually say to use the pads on the corners. It's going back today, and I have an Aqueon Forge arriving today too, which I've used before with no issue.

I would get some different media in there (ie "hot rod" it) - the co-op has some videos on things to try with HOBs. With the sponge you'll be ok not using it. Is your temp really 89F?

Oh, and if you feel your tank is cycled you can toss some amano shrimp in there (very low bio-load), and they will be in flavor town. But I would wait for the plants b/c they like cover.

I'd get those plants ordered, they will help and with the info in this post, you'll be looking much better. I wouldn't worry about planting them right away - let the bacteria on the rockwool marinate in your tank for a bit. FWIW it took me a few tries to figure out what plants worked best for me. The floating plant in the above pic is water sprite. You can float it - plant it, or both!

I have a 10g too. It started off looking a lot like yours - 3 months later this is what I have, and what I mean by heavy planting:

I can't recall who, but someone on this forum advised me to shoot for 70% of the tank being plant mass. I've pretty much done that over the past couple months and my algae issues are minimal now.

What everyone said here is great advise. I'd just like to add what I'd do: More plants, especially faster growing ones, will help out-compete the algae. If you are regularly dosing Easy Green for only a few plants, you're mostly giving the algae food. I'd cut the dosing way down. Use root tabs to feed the rooted plants. Floating plants will help too - if you can't dim your light, they will help prevent blasting the entire tank with light. Put the light on a timer, and give the tank a "siesta" (lights off) in between your lighting periods. So like 3.5 hours on, 2 off, 3.5 on. You'll pull through, my first tanks looked like primordial soup the first month or so.

That sounds cool to me - just be careful if your tank has a lid and the rock is coming out of the water. One thing I like with centerpiece rocks is having smaller pieces of the same kind of rock around it. Kinda ties the room together and looks more natural.

I use Planting Tweezers - they are so useful for many things, recommend that and the scissors if you don't have them.

Smaller community fish and heavily planted tanks. My tanks are pretty small at 10 and 20g. I'm currently building an army of platies, but I also have ember tetras and am looking to expand. I have a new tank in the works, and will be adding to my existing tanks once I figure out the platy fry situation. Everything is so happy and healthy I'm just enjoying the ride and not rushing anything. Thanks for the note! I think there's a cichlid club, but cichlids aren't really my thing. There's a much bigger club outside the city, but it's like a 60-90 minute drive and I don't always have a car available. You'd think there would be more.

I use gravel in both my tanks and what really turned my plant game around was giving the plants a CO2 burst. First I tried a siesta - cutting the lights for a couple hours mid-day to let the CO2 levels build up again. Not bad - def helped. I homebrewed for 15 years so I had all these CO2 tanks lying around, so I was like, why not? I started passive CO2, using the inverted bottle trick (up-ending a plastic water bottle and filling it with CO2 every day/night and letting it dissolve into the water). Results - even better! But filling the bottles got tedious - so I bit the bullet and got a proper regular and diffusers for my tanks. I only shoot for 10ppm CO2 max when lights are on, about a third of what the serious aqua scapers do. Now I can grow plants that I never could before and everything looks super healthy. Plants like scarlet temple def like a CO2 boost. Pearl weed always died on me before, now it looks fantastic. I only bring this up b/c for ME, I found CO2 was my limiting factor in plant health. I don't think sand or gravel matters - but I'm working on a tank with sand next, so I'll get to put that to the test. I also use root tabs, and light Easy Green dosing (I'm finding for my hard water, smaller doses work better - otherwise algae will take it up before the plants can). Good luck 👍

Good idea - but after further inspection this morning, those corners are actually dented 😞 I think this stand was used and repackaged.

@Matilyn I can level the stand so the stand itself won't wobble, it's the flushness with the tank I'm concerned about. From what I know, all 4 corners of rimmed tanks must be supported. Maybe I just answered my own question 🤔

Hi all - what are your thoughts on the non-flushness of this 20g high stand?

Hi all - I live in Chicago, north side Wicker/Humboldt Park area. Anybody else? Just looking for folks to meet and swap with.